At the Edge of the Haight Read online

  Root ran at me and jumped up, reaching to lick my face. I hugged him and then told him to get down. Ash followed me into the living room. People were asleep all over the floor and Root roamed the room, smelling everyone, first around the face and then getting more personal.

  “Root, off,” I whisper screamed when he stuck his nose on the half-naked butt of the guy who’d been dancing the night before. He rolled over and pulled his shirt down over his sagging jeans without opening his eyes. Ash laughed, until I put my hand over his mouth.

  “Will you just shut it for a minute?” I said. “Except for him,” I pointed at Serenity, curled in a corner next to his pack, “I have no idea who these guys are. How’d you know where I was?”

  “He knew,” he said, pointing at Root, who was trying to jump on me again. It shouldn’t have surprised me because every particle in the universe left notes for him to follow. “I figured you’d be here. Where else were you going to crash?”

  He was right. Anyone could know where I was. I looked around at the windows and hallway, thinking which way I’d go if the man from the park showed up.

  “He missed you last night,” said Ash, patting Root’s head. “Barked his ass off at some cop who came by asking about a kid who got carved up in the park. He wanted to know if anyone knew him or saw what happened. And then I remembered how you came booming out of there yesterday.”

  “I never saw that kid before yesterday,” I said.

  “Maddy, what the . . .” Ash’s voice trailed off. “You knew him?”

  “I didn’t know him,” I said. “But I might have watched him die.”

  Just saying it out loud, I knew it was true. It made my heart jam again, like my chest was splitting open. It was strangling the air out of me. I started panting and I could barely see Ash or Root.

  Ash took my arm and pulled me down the hall into the kitchen. He looked for a cup but couldn’t find one, so he scooped his hands under the faucet and brought them to my face. I gulped, half of the water dripping down my chin. My breathing settled, enough to notice the wreck in front of me. Paper plates with crusty noodles and pizza crusts sat on the cracked tile counter. Sacks of trash were pushed up against the sink. The smell of rot and the clutching inside my chest made me gag.

  “Hey,” said Ash, leading me to a stairwell at the back of the kitchen. “What happened?”

  I told him how Root had run off into the bushes where the kid was lying on the ground and we’d walked into the man who was standing there, almost like he was waiting for us. I could tell Ash wasn’t sure if I was telling it straight. It’s not like I didn’t make stuff up, Ash said. I put my hand flat on his chest so he would get it, I was serious. I told him how the man yelled he knew where to find me and how he looked not all there. Maybe Root had watched it all happen, but I’d only seen the body.

  “That is so fucked up,” said Ash.

  “You’re sure the guy who maybe killed him didn’t just show up at the shelter?” I said.

  “He said he wanted to know what happened. Why would some dude who stabbed someone pretend to be a cop and then go out asking about it?”

  “I don’t know. So he can take care of me, like he did with that kid?”

  “That’s twisted, even for you.”

  I knew how the undercover cops dressed and how they watched us on the street. It wasn’t a big secret. They would stand on the corner, try to talk to us. How you doing? You’ve looked better. What happened to your shoes? One used to wear a leather hat and reflector sunglasses so big you could check yourself out. We’d walk by, say hey, and he’d stand there, a statue taking it all in. Then last Christmas he brought a bag of peanut butter sandwiches and new socks and left it on the corner for us. We never saw him after that. I couldn’t tell anymore who was a cop or who wasn’t. Everything had changed after yesterday.

  We walked down the street and Root pulled on his leash, trying to get back to the park. We could hear the creaking of metal gates being rolled up, a bus beeping as it pulled over to let people off. The fog was starting to melt but it still threw the street out of focus. The mural on the corner was a blur of yellow and red roses, with giant letters, love, floating in the middle. Ash picked up a piece of cardboard from a trashcan and stuffed it under his arm. I thought about sitting on the sidewalk with a sign, need bus $, so I could go back to Los Angeles, somewhere so big that no one saw you. I could get myself into beauty school like everyone told me to, and forget about the guy who was after me. I could apologize for going away, for thinking I could figure everything out on my own.

  chapter 4

  I pulled off my sweatshirt and dropped it on the pavement for Root, who circled a few times and then collapsed on top. The sun was still trying to break through a thin paste of white clouds. We sat in front of the empty sneaker store that used to be full of brightly colored shoes parked in rows like cars at a lot in Los Angeles. The manager would tell us he was going to call the cops if we set up outside and then he’d flick his fists open and closed so we would think about police lights. People used to line up all night and sleep on the street for their big events. Then a guy would toss the first pair of shoes, free, into the crowd in the morning. People shoved and jumped to get them because someone famous had signed his name on the side. Ash said one time a kid who’d caught a pair got shot, but he’d stood up and walked away, cradling the shoes in his arms. A few weeks ago, the store closed and now no one cared if we sat in the doorway. Someone had spray-painted a tree on the window and the words happy christmas in bright red, even though it was just past Halloween. It was an invite to draw on the tree, so people had scribbled words, added a ring of black roses and a tiny man with his tongue hanging out. I’d made a picture of Root with his nose up in the air, except no one but me could tell what it was.

  Ash handed me a bagel from a sack he’d found outside the grocery store down the street. I broke it in half and Root swallowed his piece fast while I gnawed on mine. People walked by like it was another normal day. The world hadn’t jolted to a stop and thrown everyone off the surface and into space. Ash said it would be stupid to go back to Los Angeles. He’d hitched down there once and it was worse. Everyone was all pumped up, about to go over the edge. No one cared what happened to you.

  He took his cardboard and laid it down on the pavement while he wrote. homeless anything helps. His signs were always straight up honest. He was the most no bullshit guy around. buy me a slice. $$ for beer. Not something like karma station, or showing up with a pan, as in, we get it, panhandle.

  Even without a sign, people would still drop coins on the sweatshirt in front of Root. They figured poor dog, he was hungry, which he wasn’t. He ate more than we did. Ash said he was going to get a dog, or a kid, so people would give more freely. He was sitting next to me, knees crossed.

  “Dough, dough, dough for burrito,” he sang out. “I don’t smoke crack.”

  A woman with a bob of curly white hair and a small gray poodle smiled at Root. She leaned down and put a dollar on the sweatshirt.

  “See what I mean?” said Ash. “It’s better not to be human.”

  I was still in a daze from the lack of sleep and the weed and my worn-out nerves. I hugged my knees and looked down at Root, sleeping. Dogs could turn it on and off. No why did I do that last night? What will happen if I do the other thing? Who is out to get me? He half barked and kicked his hind legs in his sleep.

  “Hey,” said Fleet from behind me, grabbing a chunk of my hair and twiddling it in her fingers. Her tattered sweater hung down to her knees. She had pulled her coarse strawberry blond hair into a bun. The gauges in her ears were the size of quarters. Her nails, caked in dirt, had an inch on them. There was a time when I would have minded them in my hair, but now I wasn’t that picky. She sat down next to me and put her arm around my back. She smelled of weed, beer, eucalyptus trees, and stale sleeping bag. It was probably the same way I smelled but didn’t notice until I got a whiff on someone else. I know people looked at me when I walke
d into the library or went to the coffee house down the street that let us use the bathroom. I knew they were seeing my knotted hair and beat-up jeans, but they were also following my smell.

  “Where is Tiny?” I said.

  “With his father,” she said. “Custody thing.” Then she pulled him out from under her sleeve.

  I forced myself to smile. There was a world outside my head and I had to try to live in it.

  “Hey, Tiny.” I put a finger on the top of his head.

  Fleet looked bent. She could drink a handle of anything and still be walking and she’d try whatever was around. I liked her quiet presence, the way she would slide over and check up on me. She would give me her last money, even though she didn’t expect me to pay her back. She never expected anything, not after her parents split up and fought over who was going to take her. They left her with friends and someone called Granny, who wasn’t, until they lost custody. She couldn’t remember what they looked like. The thing was, Fleet could go home if she wanted. Her foster mom kept a room for Fleet even though she kicked her out a few years ago when she’d turned eighteen, saying she was turning off the faucet for her own good. But Fleet still called her Mom and would go over to the other side of the bay and stay a few days, until the two of them started fighting. She said her mom had a nose like a dog that smelled for drugs at the airport and she’d come near and start sniffing. Last summer her mom posted signs around the Haight with a picture of Fleet from years ago in a blue shirt, her hair in neat braids. lost and at risk, it said, under the picture. Fleet had ripped down all the signs, said she wasn’t her real mom but she acted like Fleet was her private property. She could go where she wanted. “And really, lost?” she said. “Am I lost?” She opened her eyes wide, the way she did when she wanted to make a point. “Hello. I’m here. If she fucking wanted to know.”

  We sat there, our heads together, not talking, when Hope walked up and slammed down next to us. Her spiky black hair looked like it could cut you open. It’s not that she didn’t have a sweet side. She could turn it on when she needed to and she knew exactly when that was. She said her parents had called her Sweet Pea when she was little, because her name was Penelope, which you couldn’t expect anyone to actually use.

  Hope knew how to make things happen. She’d talked a crew on the street into giving her scraps of weed they couldn’t sell. She set up and was happy for about a week, until they wanted a bigger cut and she said it wasn’t worth it, that she’d go into business on her own. Then she’d told the pizza place down the street that she’d deliver for them, no charge, if they’d give her a free pie every night. The manager said she had a job if she cleaned herself up. He wasn’t going to hire someone who looked like she slept in the gutter. Hope came away with a super large pizza, but never went in for the job. After that, the manager gave us pies that no one picked up, setting them on the sidewalk and waving. We’d picked up trash in front of his store if he was there to see it, just to let him know we were looking out for him.

  Hope talked to everyone. “Where y’all from?” she’d say, like she was from the South, even though she came from Mendocino and went back there every season to trim weed because that’s where the real money was. “Oh, Texas. Great state.” And she did collect more than the rest of us. Sometimes she’d follow the tourists all the way down the street, jabbering the whole time. She’d tell them about the amusement park that used to be on the street a long time ago and Fish Man, who ate and smoked underwater. Seriously. We were not the first freaks. If they asked directions, like to the famous corner of Haight and Ashbury, the actual headquarters of the hippie movement, she’d volunteer to show them the spot, as if she had been there when the hippies were all over the street, handing out free food, taking acid and listening to the Grateful Dead and whatever else they did. “Turn on, tune in, drop out,” she’d say. Then she’d take them to see where the famous musicians lived, houses now fixed up and painted bright as parrots. “Jerry and Janis couldn’t afford them now,” she’d say and pose for pictures in front, wearing her tie-dyed T-shirt from the free box at the shelter. “Hardly anyone can.” That would start the tourists talking about how much had changed, no wonder so many people were living on the street. You couldn’t go anywhere in the city without seeing them. Hope would say how it was different for kids here. It was still about free love and peace and everything. She probably believed that. Her parents were old hippies. They lived in a house with no running water or electricity, except what they got from her dad pedaling a bike on a stand. It didn’t sound good to me. I hadn’t seen my mom in ten years, but I had lived with electricity and if I got settled one day it would not be in a dump with no lights or water.

  Fleet, Hope, and I were tight, even if we didn’t always think the same. I came from a house full of kids, the ones no one knew what to do with and a few who were sort of related to me. But we were not what you’d call a family, not that my real family was either. I never had anyone like Hope and Fleet. We had been here the longest. Other girls would come and go, but usually it was the three of us. And Ash. We called him an honorary sister, which he ignored. He sat against the wall with his sign, his skateboard between his outstretched legs.

  I was still leaning into Fleet, her arm over my shoulder, when a heavy black shoe appeared next to my knee. We knew most of the beat cops and they knew us. But this guy must be new. He had a fresh buzz cut and wore his hat too far forward, sunglasses stuck around the back slab of his neck.

  “Ladies,” he said, tipping the hat slightly back. “You will have to move along.”

  Hope saluted him. “Yes, sir,” she said.

  I elbowed her to stop. I didn’t need to make it obvious to whoever was looking for me that I was right here. The guy in the park might have told the cops that I attacked the kid. Who were they going to believe? Besides, this was the usual routine; no one paid attention unless we gave them a reason to. There was a law against sitting or lying around on the sidewalk during the day, but it was a violation of our rights. That’s what they told us at the shelter. People who stayed outside had the same rights as people inside. No one could talk down to you because you didn’t live in a house.

  “You know the rules,” he said, sticking his sunglasses back on his eyes. “Gotta share the sidewalk.” He reached out a foot and pushed Ash’s sign against the wall.

  “It’s him,” Ash whispered to me. “The cop who was at the shelter last night, asking about that kid.”

  I pretended not to hear him. We stood up and leaned against the wall, starting the game that might last all day. As soon as he left, we’d sit down again or move around the corner and stop in at the library. They left us alone if we went to the park, but we couldn’t get anything going there and they knew it. All day we moved from spot to spot, with the cops following. It was a stupid law and we all knew it. Hope once found an office chair in a dumpster and rolled around the sidewalk in it. They couldn’t do anything about that. Ash got on his knees and said he wasn’t sitting or lying so they couldn’t make him move. That worked for a minute before one of the cops called him a clown and said if he was on his knees he’d better be praying not to go to jail. Then he’d taken out his phone and asked us to sing happy birthday to his wife. On the last part Ash screamed out, “I want to do you so much” instead of “Happy birthday to you,” but the cop said it was cheaper than roses. “You know how much fresh roses cost?” he said. “You get them, then they die.”

  We had all been written up before for blocking the sidewalk, meaning that they could bring us in, no questions asked, whenever they wanted. But usually they didn’t want to spend the time or money doing that any more than we wanted to go into the station. They knew we’d never pay any fines and so they’d end up tossing out the charges. We all lived the game. But the new cop didn’t seem to know how it worked. He looked annoyed after Hope saluted, like she had flipped him off.

  “Anyone want to talk to the outreach team?” He looked at each of us. “A ride to the crisis she
lter? Sober center?” No one said anything.

  “Didn’t think so,” he said. “I see you again and I’ll have to cite you all.” He adjusted his hat once more and went off down the street.

  “Fuck,” I kicked Hope’s steel-toed boot. “What are you trying to do?”

  “Excuse her,” said Ash, leaning down and pulling me up by my arm. “She had a hard night.”

  We walked down the street to a head shop and settled in close to the building, our feet tucked in so it was clear were not blocking anyone. Ash found a piece of cardboard and started writing. need lunch. Fleet lowered her face into a torn-up paperback she’d found at the shelter. She was always picking up books. She didn’t care what they were about, vampires, building tree houses, world war, whatever someone had dumped at the shelter or in a box on the street. Soon Hope was up and standing at the corner asking a guy with a map if he wanted help. Then she was off with him, toward the corner of Ashbury and Haight, where she would give him the tourist talk and maybe he would buy her a cone at Ben & Jerry’s.

  “Excuse me, what did I say?” said the new cop, standing next to me again.

  Ash stood up and glared at him. “This is America and last time I checked we had rights,” he said. The cop turned away and spoke into a small microphone pinned on his shoulder. It crackled when he talked. I heard the word backup and a squad car raced down the street, its lights flashing, like it was some emergency. Where were they when the kid was getting stabbed, all the blood running out? My stomach started to twist up again. Everyone on the street was craning to look at us. Drivers slowed down to see what was up. The man who owned the bookstore across the street stepped out. He sometimes bought us food from the grocery and said we could come in and browse, looking was free. He raised a hand and gestured toward us with two fingers, but it was too late.